The One About Freelance Writing

Originally, I thought I’d be posting about podcasting or Dungeons & Dragons as one of my initial posts. As it turns out, I have some thoughts about writing—freelance writing specifically.

I’m far from an experienced writer; it’s definitely more of a hobby than anything else. But in the last three to four years, I’ve had some experience with freelance writing from various outlets—most of them being fan sites that don’t offer pay. Which is fine, I’m not a writer by trade and I wanted a creative outlet.

Now, let’s put this caveat on front street: these are my experiences and my experiences alone. While I won’t be talking about my experience with each company in detail, assume that if I don’t mention details about them that there is a good reason. But for the most part, each company I wrote for came with a pleasant experience. Each was different, but you’ll probably notice a theme:

• Dark Knight News
• Comic Crusaders
• Multiversity Comics
• FanSided
  • Bam Smack Pow
  • FoodSided
  • MTG Sideboard (Site Expert)

Only one of those things come at you from left field.

Out of the four brands I’ve written for, only one was for “pay”. To be honest, I don’t think I ever withdrew the money from it! While getting paid to do a thing is very cool, it was never about that for me. I just enjoyed writing—mainly the reviewing aspect of it, but coming up with fun opinion pieces was always a fun exercise. Regurgitating news, while offering my own opinion on said news was fun, always felt “meh” to me. I’d much rather hop on a podcast or record a video reaction to news than just rewrite it.

Three sites stand out as my best experiences with writing (which are actually great odds). Dark Knight News‘s overall policy was pretty great—for my news pieces, I knew what day I had to be ready to go; while the rest of the week I helped run backup if other writers couldn’t get to the news. Hands down, DKN was the absolute best outlet I ever wrote reviews for. I couldn’t even tell you why—perhaps it was the editing team, but there was zero stress to it. DKN’s overall vibe felt like a club for Batman fans (which, is technically true). I never experimented with opinion pieces for DKN, which is something I’d love to do with more experience under my belt.

Bam Smack Pow and FoodSided had GREAT leadership in their editing teams (or, as FanSided calls them, Site Experts). While there was a focus on commenting on news, these outlets allowed me to flourish with opinion pieces. And while the relationships with the Site Experts were top-notch, I never felt the same connection to the other writers as I did with DKN. Perhaps it was me feeling too busy and overwhelmed to keep up with the conversation, but that “club” feeling was missing from BSP and FS.

As I said, I’m not necessarily interested in calling out the negatives I’ve had in my freelance writing experiences, but I do want to vaguely call out two bad experiences. Both are somewhat related to the COVID-19 pandemic with another more so related to policy and my personal integrity.

When it comes to being a writer, it was baffling to me when I told one outlet that I need to take a few weeks off due to my mental health with what was happening in the world (at the time, it was just COVID-19) and they straight up shamed me for it. One member of the leadership team later reached out to apologize, but it was too little too late in my opinion. Another outlet’s policy is they inactivate you after X amount of days, which all in all, I don’t think is a bad thing. However, I do think in times of crisis, that policy needs to be looked at a bit deeper. The world is on fire—a pandemic, systematic racism and police brutality being exposed for the whole world to see on a daily basis, and an unfit President saying inane things daily—I’m sorry, but writing about Batman needs to take the backseat. My direct bosses were 100% supportive and understanding, even warning me that I would be marked inactive. I wanted to write to ensure that didn’t happen, but again, 2020 be like:

As an editor, and I must reiterate, that this is all from my experience, I felt like I wasn’t heard and that the focus was on quantity over quality. As a writer or editor, I could have easily churned three articles of crap a day. But I hold myself to a certain level of professionalism, even when I’m not getting paid. Every vision I pitched for the site I was managing seemed like it was a go when I was brought on board, but requests for certain things to make them happen went unheard. Taking the blame for ensuring image assets were readily available prior to starting in my new role was largely ignored to get those said assets. It’s impossible to write one article a day, let alone three, when there are a total of six to ten images available (that, honestly, have nothing to do with the content I’m writing). Bringing up potential solutions went unheard. This was by far my worst experience I’ve ever had with writing.

The point of all this? It’s been weighing on me. Seeing how different sites operate is truly enlightening and I give it up for all those freelance writers and/or editors that make this their primary source of income. My advice for other writers? It’s entirely possible to build your resume writing for outlets that respect you as a person. Build those resumes with outlets that you have something to say. And most certainly be wary of taking on a larger role—be absolutely clear with what your willing to provide based on certain expectations. Sacrifice where you can, but if you truly believe in something—from a topic you’re writing about to how a post looks—don’t back down.

Allons-y!